TSOA’s André Lepecki Wins AICA’s 2007 Best Performance Award

By Richard Pierce

      André Lepecki, associate professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, has won, along with Stephanie Rosenthal, currently chief curator of the Hayward Gallery in London, the International Art Critics Association award for Best Performance of 2007 for the New York “redoing” of Allan Kaprow’s seminal performance piece 18 Happenings in 6 Acts (1959). The event was directed by Lepecki and co-curated by Lepecki and Rosenthal.
      Lepecki originally restaged the work in 2006 for the Allan Kaprow exhibit at Haus der Künst. It was the first authorized “redoing” of Kaprow’s influential work, whose performances at the Reuben Gallery in New York City in 1959 opened up whole new fields of possibilities for visual arts, the performing arts, and post-modern dance in the following decades.
      “I am quite happy for this great honor,” said Lepecki. “This award also extends to the Performance Studies Department as well since the majority of performers in the New York run were students and alumni of our department.”
      The core artistic team, under Lepecki’s direction, included performance studies Ph.D. candidate Noémie Solomon (movement analysis and reconstruction); designer Christin Vahl (environment); and Brown University Ph.D. candidate Shawn Greenlee (sound design and sound reconstruction). The New York production was supported by Performance Studies International and presented by PERFORMA 07 at Deitch Studios in Long Island City.